“Keep walking,” he said. So, I got up and began to walk up and down in front of the house. But it did not help.
“Keep walking,” he repeated. He was sitting in his usual place in the big chair, mala in his hand.
“Sometimes I say to Miss L., keep walking! When my heart is melting, you feel it, and you cannot bear it.”
Strange: how the telling off and the melting of the heart can go together? So I continued for a while. The trees smelled of greenery; the garden was dusty. He went inside. Like most men, I think, he cannot bear to see a woman cry, so he always disappears….
When I was still crying and trying to cope with tears running down my cheeks, he came out silently and sat down near me on a chair. He began translating, in a low monotonous voice, a passage from the Tulsi Ramayana:
“A sweet smell has the dust at the feet of my Guru; never I cried before, but now there is no end of sorrow for me….”
I tried to compose myself, coping unsuccessfully with a sloshy, slippery, hanky; it was quite embarrassing….
“Do you remember that I came out to meet you when you came for the first time? When you came from the station and Mrs. Ghose brought you here? I never go and meet anybody! Filibert sat here for an hour before I came out to meet him.”
I was still occupied with trying to dry, at least partly, my cheeks.
My skin was burning and painful from salty tears mixed with perspiration. “It was an act of courtesy towards an elderly lady,” I mumbled feebly.
“Yes, yes, maybe,” he smiled. “Maybe it was, but perhaps there was another reason.” His smile deepened… this expression again… this strange, luminous, expression. As if I always knew it so far, so deep in me, that the memory of it could not be pinned down clearly. This expression always profoundly disturbs me, haunts me like a dream of long ago….
“The bird of Manas flies here and there until the hawk of love catches it. Where the King is, how can anything else remain?”
I think I mentioned before that all Yogis have good voices. His has a kind of metallic ring in it. Belllike, I thought… awakening an echo somewhere.
“A Saint took a bath in the pool, and he felt a wonderful fragrance around him. ‘Oh earth,’ he said, ‘I am a human being; I cannot have such a wonderful fragrance. From where have you got this lovely smell? Oh Saint,’ said the earth, ‘I am dust, a worthless dust only; but fragrant flowers grew all around here; they kept me company, and their fragrance remained with me.’ “
“When I hear you sing and I close my eyes, I see endless expanses of sand, a scorching heat, the cold of the night under a dome studded with huge stars. Why do I see camp-fires going on all night, and your voice just like now, like a faraway dream? And why this feeling of breathless happiness which goes with it?”
He only smiled and resumed to sing: “The Guru sees God, and the Shishya sees the Guru; the Guru is a transparent glass through which the Shishya can see God. The Guru gives to the disciple without conditions because he wants to give. With others he is polite, that’s all. Always be polite. Never injure anybody’s feelings.
All right?” he asked, when I was leaving. I shook my head.
“I am full of suffering.”
“Suffering is good. Let it be. Go home and rest.” It was terribly hot already.
3rd April
SO MUCH SORROW IS IN ME that there is no speech left to express it.
Have no desire to speak to him. Go there in the morning and sit.
About 10 a.m. he sends me home. I am sort of empty. Everything seems to be dead. No desires are left… only one—only this terrible, deadly longing. But there seems to be no hope. It is a sort of peace made of darkness.
4th April
HE DID NOT SPEAK TO ME all day’ and I did not attempt to say anything.
There is nothing to say, nothing to ask. All is dead inside me. Such hopeless feeling… and the most amazing thing is that something in me does not mind this sorrow. More and more of it… as if I were interested to see how far it can go. Where is the very depth, the end, the bottom of it? Or is it like a bottomless pit into which I will sink forever? The natural thing for a human being is to seek pleasure and to shrink from pain. But for reasons which are beyond my understanding, I want more and more of this sorrow, though I have no idea why I am in such a dreadful state. The reason for it is not clear at all. Pleasure and pain are the two poles on which the whole world of Samsara (the wheel of birth and death caused by illusion) is revolving. Pleasure and pain are the two opposites the attraction and the repulsion. But I don’t shrink from sorrow… why? It seems as if the whole of my desire would be to dissolve, to be submerged by it… what a strange state of mind… bless me, if I understand it.
Told him that my body is defeating me because of the vomiting condition, and I can hardly eat. I also have reason to think that my eyesight is deteriorating because I am weeping so much. I happen to know a case of someone who cried so much after the death of her husband that her eyesight became weak and the color of her eyes watery-blue.
“It was because she cried about worldly things. If one cries for love, it never happens. I cried for years for my Rev. Guru Maharaj, and my eyesight is all right. My father cried until the last moment before he died, and I myself… I really should not speak of it…
well, I still cry. It will be not for a few weeks that you will be crying, but for months, for years…. “
I was grateful to him for alleviating my worry about my eyesight; but in reality I did not quite understand what he had meant.
All seems to be still inside me… as if something has died in me.
Do not want to ask questions, do not want to speak, and if he does not talk to me, it does not matter either. Even the mind seems to be still.
“Keep being flooded with love for the next few years,” he said.
What did he mean by that? I was not sure….
5th April
HE WAS CHANTING THE RAMAYANA. It was already dark, and I was watching his luminous eyes in the darkness.
6th April
SOMETHING HAPPENED LAST NIGHT. I cannot find myself. This morning I experienced the nearest state of non-being since I am alive. Mind does not work at all.
Tried to read a journal forwarded to me from Adyar and could not comprehend a thing.
He was praying silently. Every time I looked up, I saw his radiant face shining with a new light. Great was the pain inside me. The world around was a crazy, crazy, mad dream, and the brain refused to function
He was talking to a very old man. When the latter left, we went to sit outside. But soon his wife called him and he did not come out for at least two hours. I was sitting alone. Lately, when there is nobody except myself, he does not come out. As soon as a man came, he too came out and sent me away to get a homeopathic medicine for the pain he has in his back. Went home early. Was tired.
7th April
THIS MORNING I was complaining publicly that I was unjustly treated; for hours they talked in Hindi. Bhai Sahib explains interesting things; I cannot follow; nothing is ever translated to me. I sit there like a cucumber and miss the benefit of his explanations.
The night was full of stars. So near. So large. Could not sleep at all.
The fire in the body was terrible.
8th April
IN THE MORNING WE WERE DISCUSSING banking business. I will be transferring the greater part of my investments into his bank account which I opened for him. He is registered as a charity. I understand only too well that I have to give up everything, that I must be able to bow my head and learn how to accept.
9th April
STRONGER THAN BEFORE SEEMS MY LOVE… and the nearness to Him was great. When I use the word “Him” and write it with a capital H, I don’t mean the Guru. I mean the Great Beloved Himself, God.
Sitting near Guruji this morning, my heart was beating so loudly that I thought that he would hear it too. For hours on end it was beating like that, stopping, missing out beats.
> 10th April
DURING THE KIRTAN I sat there and cried. Pushpa translated a verse from the Ramayana which they sang tonight: “There are two ways how Thou canst love me; Either I should be so perfect that Thou hast to love me, Or I will surrender before Thee, and Thou who Lovest Thy Creation
Thou willst love me for myself.”
My heart was so full… full of tenderness and deep love. After the Kirtan, sitting with Pushpa in the hall upstairs, suddenly I felt as if the Love for Him is beginning to include all the living things, all His Creation. Until now I felt love only for Him and Him alone… all I could do was not to hate and try to tolerate others… there was no room for anybody else. But now, it seemed to me as if all the Creation was contained in this Love through Him in the most wonderful way. And so Pushpa and I, we sat there quite still, and she had her eyes full of tears. I did not cry, but so wonderful, so deep was the Love. And the evening was still and warm. When I went home, such was the fragrance, every shrub seemed to flower in the gardens around.
11th April
HE WAS TALKING WITH ANIMATION seated as usual in his crosslegged position; plenty of people were sitting around him. I sat on his left.
They were all talking Hindi. I had nothing else to do, so I began to examine the palms of my hands. He saw what I was doing and looked in my direction with a smile. I asked him what this strange line was, connecting my lifeline and the fortune-line, forming like a large island in both hands; and it seems to be growing and changing in the last few years.
“Do you really want to know what it means?” he asked. I said, “Please, do tell me… even if it is something bad, I can bear it.”
“No, it is not bad, but difficult to explain; it is as if you would be put in prison. All the forces are scattered now, so to say, but then it will be all united.” He took my left hand, and pointing to a small interruption in the fortune-line above the head-line: “This,” he said, “will join soon and will carry your fortune-line right to the middle finger.” He smiled and pushed my hand jokingly away. “Plenty of travels are there in your hands,” he added.
In the evening, by questioning him, I was given to understand that the sex-urge was not awakened by him or his power as I assumed, but it was already there, latent, a sort of a powerful Vasana.
“Ancient Karmas form part and parcel of the blood (unconscious memories are stored in the blood-stream: C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections). It was in you. It would have dragged you back again and again into the womb, but from now on it will burn itself out. From time to time this fire will burn in your body. This is a purifying fire, this suffering, and you will need a lot more.”
Well, I thought, not a very bright prospect… and this is to put it mildly.
“When you meet your Spiritual Guide, this is supposed to be your last Karma-bound life. After that, one is supposed to be free to go where the Teacher directs you. There are many planes, besides the earth plane, where Service can be rendered. Disciples must be free. And if the Teacher is powerful, he will take them through all the three planes. But surrender and absolute obedience are needed.”
When at home, could not help wondering how many evils I must have had in me to be burned to such an extent.
21 The Stages of Love
IT WAS LIKE A LOVELY DREAM. We all went with a truck to the Samadhi of his father, a lovely place, seven miles outside the town amongst the plains. The day was cloudy and not at all hot. How fragrant are the Indian plains, the wind coming from afar smelling of wood smoke, cowdung and dust and sun-drenched distances. How I love this earthy smell… to me it represents the smell of freedom, if freedom could have a smell. Peace was in me. Such peace. The whole day it was like this. Told him that it was too good to be true, and I know that it will not last. And he nodded. Told him that I noticed that things first happen on the inner planes before they come to manifest on the physical plane. Many things are already happening somewhere; soon they will be here. He nodded again with a serious expression.
“The stages of Love: One can see women carrying jars of water on their heads, on their shoulders, in their hands. They do not spill the water, nor do they break the jars. But even if a jar is broken, there is but a small loss; another can be purchased and filled with water again. Those people are still far off from the Lane of Love.
“One can see acrobats performing on the rope and in the air. They can fall and have their bones fractured and even die, but they are still using tricks to safeguard themselves as much as possible. Those people just begin to come into the Lane of Love.
“Switch on a lamp, and you will see insects attracted to the light, and there is a great competition amongst them to come nearer and nearer… who comes first. They throw themselves into the light without reserve, without condition, and burn to death. Only this is the Great Love.”
“Why am I in such a distressed state periodically? This fear of you?
Such a fear of you that it is sometimes like panic.”
“It is the mind again,” he said softly. “And it will come again and again; it will come and go, until the mind merges somewhere.”
“But no wonder that I am afraid of you, Bhai Sahib; I feel so helpless, and the feeling of utter helplessness is frightening. Human beings are afraid of the dark, afraid of sufferings. I am afraid of new sufferings you may give me; it seems I had enough of them until now…. “
“Sufferings?” he asked. “You did not begin yet!” I looked at him in amazement: “Are you joking, or do you mean it seriously? Do you mean to say that the horrors I suffered until now are nothing?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. It has still to come. On our Line such suffering is given that there are no words for it….”
“No wonder I am afraid of you,” I said hardly audibly, looking at his serene face.
“But what’s the use of repeating how much you suffered? What’s the use of being sorry for oneself? Why not say courageously: It is nothing, I will bear more. The river has to be crossed, so let’s go on…. “
“Thank you, it will be a help to think like this… you are right, it will help me in the future.” He smiled. “Can I contribute consciously? Could I somehow direct the mind into the right channels, as soon as I know that it is the creator of all troubles?”
He shook his head. “No, you can do nothing; it has to be like this, otherwise you will not progress. Up and down it goes… full of love and empty again; in this Line in one second things are done, and in a moment the table is turned.”
“Does it mean that I don’t love enough?”
“No, it is BECAUSE you love deeply that it happens. Would the mind bother if there would not be the great disturbance of deep love? No, certainly it wouldn’t. And the fact that the pain is sharper and deeper each time is a good sign. Pray that you should love more and more…. “
He got up and asked me to come into the room. There he took his kurta off, and Panditji began to massage him. I took a small carpet and sat down on the floor near the door. I am so much more comfortable seated cross-legged on the floor, and I was nearer and could hear what he was saying. The whole scene was so Indian: the devoted disciple massaging with reverence, with so much love, his Guru. The bearded Panditji looked most decorative; only his beard was black, and the Guru’s white, or rather grey. And I thought with melancholy that when one day {let this day be very far away, oh Lord!) I will leave India, I will always remember this scene: him lying on the tachat and Panditji massaging him.
“This body is perishable, yes, but it is extremely important. Why?
Because Atman is in the body; we evolve through this physical body.
That’s why we have to surrender the physical body as well. When the body is surrendered, the progress is quicker. The Master can do with the body what needs to be done to train it according to necessity.”
“Even to kill it?” I asked.
“Yes, even to kill it,” he repeated. “And sometimes it is done in a certain way. But not always is it necessary. At any rate
it is much better to be in the Teacher’s presence. Remember, the Atman pervades the physical body from head to foot, every atom of it.”
I was sitting on the floor, near the open door; it was cool, and my heart was full of peace. All was well, once more….
“If such thoughts are in your mind, if the suffering is here, why don’t you ask yourself, what is in my heart?” He looked kindly at me. And Panditji’s hands went on kneading his shoulders… like a bronze statue he was, shining with oil, and his face was all light.
“Why are cranks attracted to all spiritual organizations?”
“The question was put wrongly; try to put it right, then ask.”
“How can I put it rightly? If it is wrong, I ask you as my Teacher to tell me how I should ask; please tell me.”
“But you put it wrongly,” he said impatiently, “are they not human beings? Those people whom you call ‘cranks’ are attracted to the places where they instinctively hope for help… but who is a crank and who is not? If you speak to the madman, he will say that you are mad and he is normal.”
DREAM: (dimly remembered) There was a question of a long, white garment, completely covering my body to the feet, which I was supposed to wear instead of my usual kind of dresses. But he came in and said, no, not yet, I cannot wear it yet. Woke up with such a feeling of disappointment.
15th April, 1962
THIS MORNING THE OLD MAN who comes now every day was obviously in distress, and when the Guru came out I drew his attention to it. He looked at him with those eyes of his which see other things beside the physical ones, and went in Samadhi. The old man kept groaning softly, half unconscious. I sat there and suddenly felt him quite near, so I just rested in him and in the Love, and it was wonderful. He was somewhere, and I was with him, in him, together. Then the old man began to talk, and talked like a machine-gun for a solid hour, giving me an acute physical distress. I was so happy, resting in deepest bliss, and here was this voice, like a crow’s, croaking on and on, talking perfect nonsense. It is this which causes such a pain when at his place: people talking and talking with disagreeable, rasping or croaking voices for hours, when all I want is to be still, just resting at his feet in utter stillness. Luckily he left after this monologue, and we all, including the Teacher, were relieved. He asked us inside the room.
Daughter of Fire Page 21